Professional attire has traditionally been regarded as a sign of ethicality. However, recent trends towards a more casual workplace may have altered the general public’s attire-based perceptions. To determine whether these trends have rendered the association between professional attire and ethicality obsolete, we draw on signaling theory and we examine, in two laboratory studies with working samples, the main effects of attire style (i.e., business formal, business casual, casual) on perceptions of employee ethicality. We also assess the mediating effects of (...) attire appropriateness, the moderating effects of context (industry type), as well as their combined moderated-mediation effects in the relation between attire style and the outcome of interest. We find that casual attire is perceived as less ethical than business casual attire in both studies but is perceived as less ethical than business formal attire in the first study only. Moreover, the effect of attire style on perceptions of ethicality is mediated by perceptions of attire appropriateness. Lastly, we found inconclusive results for the moderated-mediation model, which suggest a more intricate effect of industry type than originally proposed. Three subsequent focus groups with working professionals provided additional insights into our findings and revealed workplace-relevant outcomes associated with perceptions of ethicality. Theoretical and practical implications, study limitations, and future research avenues are discussed. (shrink)

Thanks in large part to the record of scholarship fostered by Hypatia, feminist philosophers are now positioned not just as critics of the canon, but as innovators advancing uniquely feminist perspectives for theorizing about the world. As relatively junior feminist scholars, the five of us were called upon to provide some reflections on emerging trends in feminist philosophy and to comment on its future. Despite the fact that we come from diverse subfields and philosophical traditions, four common aims emerged in (...) our collaboration as central to the future of feminist philosophies. We seek to: 1) challenge universalist and essentialist frameworks without ceding to relativism; 2) center coloniality and embodiment in our analyses of the intermeshed realities of race and gender by shifting from oppression in the abstract to concrete cosmologies and struggles, particularly those of women of color and women of colonized communities across the globe; 3) elaborate the materialities of thought, being, and community that must succeed atomistic conceptions of persons as disembodied, individually constituted, and autonomous; 4) demonstrate what is distinctive and valuable about feminist philosophy, while fighting persistent marginalization within the discipline. In our joint musings here, we attempt to articulate how future feminist philosophies might advance these aims, as well as some of the challenges we face. (shrink)

Background: Clinical genomic implementation studies pose challenges for informed consent. Consent forms often include complex language and concepts, which can be a barrier to diverse enrollment, and these studies often blur traditional research-clinical boundaries. There is a move toward self-directed, web-based research enrollment, but more evidence is needed about how these enrollment approaches work in practice. In this study, we developed and evaluated a literacy-focused, web-based consent approach to support enrollment of diverse participants in an ongoing clinical genomic implementation study. (...) Methods: As part of the Cancer Health Assessments Reaching Many (CHARM) study, we developed a web-based consent approach that featured plain language, multimedia, and separate descriptions of clinical care and research activities. CHARM offered clinical exome sequencing to individuals at high risk of hereditary cancer. We interviewed CHARM participants about their reactions to the consent approach. We audio recorded, transcribed, and coded interviews using a deductively and inductively derived codebook. We reviewed coded excerpts as a team to identify overarching themes. Results: We conducted 32 interviews, including 12 (38%) in Spanish. Most (69%) enrolled without assistance from study staff, usually on a mobile phone. Those who completed enrollment in one day spent an average of 12 minutes on the consent portion. Interviewees found the information simple to read but comprehensive, were neutral to positive about the multimedia support, and identified increased access to testing in the study as the key difference from clinical care. Conclusions: This study showed that interviewees found our literacy-focused, web-based consent approach acceptable; did not distinguish the consent materials from other online study processes; and valued getting access to testing in the study. Overall, conducting empirical bioethics research in an ongoing clinical trial was useful to demonstrate the acceptability of our novel consent approach but posed practical challenges. (shrink)

Lee emphasizes the need to better understand the moral relationship between researchers and participants connoted by precision medicine, with the framework of “the gift” offering bioethics a...

An introductory level text designed to explain and review basic ideas concerning the role of law in society. Assuming no previous knowledge of the field, the volume examines the theoretical and empirical dimensions of law in society from political, sociological, psychological and philosophical perspectives.

The terms ‘compatibilism’ and ‘incompatibilism’ were introduced in the mid-20th century to name conflicting views about the logical relationship between the thesis of determinism and the thesis that someone has free will. These technical terms were originally introduced within a specific research paradigm, the classical analytic paradigm. This paradigm is now in its final stages of degeneration and few free-will theorists still work within it (i.e. using its methods, granting its substantive background assumptions, etc.). This chapter discusses how the ambiguity (...) of the terms ‘incompatibilism’ and ‘compatibilism’ took root as the classical analytic paradigm declined and why this matters to the contemporary debate. Among other things, I explain why the ambiguity of these anachronistic terms, though relatively innocuous when they were first introduced, is now encouraging theorists to tolerate and perpetuate serious philosophical errors (e.g. to conflate relations as different in kind and importance as correlation and causation, to promote uncontentiously invalid arguments, and to equivocate in ways that keep the free-will debate mired in pseudo-stalemates). I also suggest a new framework for anyone looking for relief from the confusion and deadlock created by quixotic attempts to redefine classical narratives and jargon so that they adequately describe the dialectical contours of the contemporary free-will debate. In addition, this new framework allows philosophers to start cross-pollinating work on free will and other famous problems of luck and control, e.g. the paradox of moral luck. (To see the distinctions applied to the philosophical problems of causal luck, constitutive luck, and moral luck, please see my essay "Free Will, Self-Creation, and the Paradox of Moral Luck" (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2019). -/- . (shrink)

Complex tensions define us, and that is why rational evaluative analysis and the deliberate application of principles to cases can, at best, claim to account for only a limited register in the full compass of ethical voice. Close analysis of brief texts from the "Mencius" and Dante's "Inferno" discloses in both an approach to ethical reflection that aims to expand the capacity for virtue, the ethical skillfulness exercised in response and evaluation, through affective engagement of the reader. This approach, a (...) kind of "re- flexive tropology," may involve us in a Han-tan walk. Nevertheless, if virtue and models of the self are interconnected, then right self-understanding is where the foundations of virtue are laid. Because the religious orientation calls into question the false fixities that inform ordinary activities and ordi- nary models of the self, it is crucial to the work of distinguishing among true and false forms of virtue. (shrink)

This new translation of _De Novo Hierosolyma Et Ejus Doctrina Coelesti_ by Emanuel Swedenborg presents the ideas of this Swedish visionary in simple, modern English. In the short work, Swedenborg discusses our motivations and inner natures, love and selfishness, and ways in which we can develop ourselves as spiritual people. He also covers different aspects of religion, such as the Bible, observances like baptism and the Holy Supper, the nature of heaven and hell, and how we can apply all these (...) ideas to our daily lives. (shrink)

Since its inception, phenomenological philosophy has engaged with empirical data of lived experiences. Recently, phenomenological philosophy itself has branched out into performing systematic qualitative research, resulting in a heterogeneous field of qualitative phenomenological philosophy. By introducing and outlining the research approach of ‘Qualitative Critical Phenomenology’ (QCP), this paper shows how one may conduct systemic qualitative research to lived experiences with an explicit phenomenological philosophical aim. In building on insights from various approaches within critical phenomenology, we not only give a stepwise (...) explication of how to do QCP, we also discuss how we reflectively engage with lived experience as a research object and how key phenomenological themes – i.e. varieties of pre-/reflectivity and the phenomenological reduction – matter for designing and conducting a QCP inquiry. As such, we contribute to discussions on critical phenomenology – i.e. why it matters – but also to debates on how qualitative critical phenomenology may provide a critical lens to prevailing socio-cultural norms and their constitutive force in co-shaping perception and experience. (shrink)

On the surface, developing a social psychology of science seems compelling as a way to understand how individual social cognition – in aggregate – contributes towards individual and group behavior within scientific communities (Kitcher, 2002). However, in cases where the functional input-output profile of psychological processes cannot be mapped directly onto the observed behavior of working scientists, it becomes clear that the relationship between psychological claims and normative philosophy of science should be refined. For example, a robust body of social (...) psychological research demonstrates implicit gender bias in the evaluation of others (e.g., Steinpreis, Anders, & Ritzke, 1999). Many expected implicit bias to be a major cause of women’s underrepresentation in math intensive fields of science; however, quantitative sociological research of hiring and manuscript and grant evaluation has discovered no gender disparity in outcomes (Ceci & Williams, 2011). Why might this be so? This paper will discuss methodological challenges that go beyond classic problems of external validity in extrapolating psychological effects and explanations to scientific communities. These problems include more complex external validity issues raised by the introduction of multi-process models of cognition (e.g., implicit versus explicit social cognition) as well as the reflexive role that folk and experimental theories of social psychology play in guiding the behavior of scientists at the individual and community level. (shrink)

According to the no-miracle argument, scientific realism is the only view that does not render the predictive success of scientific theories miraculous. Against the no-miracle argument, selectionists argue that the predictive success of scientific theories is a product of them being subject to a selection process that weeds out predictively unsuccessful theories. Against selectionism, I argue that the selectionist explanation is not an alternative to the realist one. More precisely, I draw on a standard framework in behavioral biology, known as (...) “Tinbergen’s four questions,” and argue that selectionism and realism are aimed at answering different questions and that they are complementary to each other, instead. (shrink)

This paper contributes to biodiversity and species extinction literature by examining the relationship between corporate accountability in terms of species protection and factors affecting such accountability from forward-thinking companies. We use triangulation of theories, namely deep ecology, legitimacy, and we introduce a new perspective to the stakeholder theory that considers species as a ‘stakeholder’. Using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood regression, we examine a sample of 200 Fortune Global companies over 3 years. Our results indicate significant positive relations between ecologically conscious companies (...) that are accountable for the protection of biodiversity and species extinction and external assurance, environmental performance, partnerships with socially responsible organizations and awards for sustainable activities. Our empirical results appear to be robust in controlling for possible endogeneities. Our findings contribute to the discussion on the concern of species loss and habitat destruction in the context of corporate accountability, especially in responding to the sixth mass extinction event and COVID-19 crisis. Our results can also guide the policymakers and stakeholders of the financial market in better decision making. (shrink)

This paper concerns broadly with the works of such ethical postmodern theorists as Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Giles Deleuze, focusing on how we can contribute to the development of their ideas by discussing Laozi and Zhuanzi’s Taoism, Buddhism, and modern Korean Neo-Confucianism of Toe-gae Lee. I claim that for criticism and art, literature, film and culture as well as philosophy itself, we are now facing this new need of another notion of subjectivity that not only accepts difference but takes the (...) position of whole positivity toward the Other. This different view of subjectivity that can be called "the sublime subjectivity" or the sublime totality of a human being or a society is essentially an aesthetic one, rather than one that depends upon logic, and it is vital to take advantage of Oriental ideas. From the perspective of the ethics of Levinas, I first place the sublime, jouissance, or pure enjoyment, at the heart of literary criticism. The pure sensibility of the sublime, or jouissance, unlike the raw feelings of pleasure, is an aesthetic sensibility beyond the ontological unity of feelings of pleasures and pains. Then with the Oriental thought, I make an attempt to contribute to the development of the ideas on the ethics of the relation of the reader and the literary text’s language. Laozi’s Taote Ching, Chuanzi, Diamond Sutra, and Toe-gae Lee’s notion of Taeguk are briefly explored in view of the aesthetic transphenomenal dimension and the sublime totality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The University and Democracy: A Response to “Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic University”Lee A. McBride IIIira harkavy has given us much to consider. His paper, “Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic University,” invites us to critically assess our democracy and the role of colleges and universities in the propagation of our democratic way of life. Harkavy suggests that universities are failing to fulfill their function, that (...) is, “to educate students to be ethical, empathetic, engaged, democratic citizens, and advance knowledge for the continuous betterment of the human condition” (50). He suggests that universities are central societal institutions in the world, and research universities are most central—“they develop new ideas and technologies, incubate businesses, serve as cultural and artistic centers, and are engines of local, national, and global economics” (50). Our universities produce our teachers and our teachers’ teachers; they shape the learning, values, and the aspirations of students (Harkavy 50). But, again, universities are not fulfilling their social function of “creating and sustaining an inclusive, just democratic society” (Harkavy 51). Harkavy boldly asserts that a revolutionary change is required in higher education if it is to fulfill its democratic function.Closed LoopI have a concern about the role of Research 1 (R1) universities in this picture. I am led to believe that R1 universities, like the University of Pennsylvania, exist in rarefied air. Penn, for example, has a ridiculous endowment—more than $20 billion. Penn apparently accepts only 9% of its applicants. The resources and demographics of R1 institutions are unlike those at state schools and small liberal arts colleges. The various canons, the faculty, and the student body at elite R1 universities have historically represented the thoughts, [End Page 76] experiences, and perplexities of well-heeled white heteronormative men. The vast majority of the faculty and students at R1 universities are predominantly of Anglo-European descent and a higher socioeconomic status. This gives me pause. If R1 universities are placed as the central engines of democratic fomenting, I worry that the faculty and students at R1 universities will direct research and social amelioration projects in particular directions and retain particular presuppositions that will buttress the continued flourishing of elite R1 universities. A closed loop. I worry that both the material and the social capital needed to (re)shape social conditions will arise only from and circulate only between those who attend elite R1 universities. I mean, Harkavy suggests that the departments, programs, and institutes at R1 universities create and sustain those knowledges and skills that produce the scholars and thoughtful people who will drive our K–12 education, who will fashion new cooperatives and entrepreneurial ventures, and who will become our community activists and political leaders. As such, the knowledge and skills to implement a more just and inclusive democracy will be disseminated from the R1 university. Harkavy also explains that it is necessary that universities strive to be democratic civic universities, sites where university folk work alongside members of the surrounding communities to address and ameliorate the problems on the ground. This “would involve significant and ongoing engagement of an institution’s comprehensive assets (academic, human, cultural, and economic) in partnership with community members to produce knowledge and educate ethical students with the ability to help create and maintain just, anti-racist, democratic societies” (Harkavy 53). The democratic civic university would then nurture a culture of democracy that exceeds mere voting practices— democracy as a way of life (Dewey 226). Prima facie, this seems like a noble goal. And yet, I still worry that those university folks who do this work will be a small representative group of people who bear particular life experiences and perhaps phenotypic markers.I would suggest that other sites outside of the R1 university (e.g., the trade union meeting, the settlement house, the church, the community garden, etc.) will need to be taken as legitimate sites of knowledge creation or legitimate sites of communication and joint activity (Collins 269). This would at least bring differing life experiences to the table; that is, it would bring differing life experiences to the fore and recognize alternative non-academic sources of insight and wisdom. These sites and alternative... (shrink)

I defend the position argued previously by Germain Grisez and me that total brain death is a valid criterion of death on the grounds that a human being is essentially a rational animal, and a brain-dead body lacks the radical capacity for rational actions. I reply to Josef Seifert’s objection that our positions rest on a reductionist view of the human person, and to other objections concerning the inter-relation between the human soul, its powers, and functions of the brain. I (...) argue that a brain-dead body lacks the material dispositions needed for having the form or soul of a human being. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Ongoing changes in many Western countries have resulted in more healthcare services being transferred to municipalities and taking place in patients’ homes. This greatly impacts nurses’ work in home care, making their work increasingly diverse and demanding. In this study, we explore home‐care nursing through a critical discourse analysis of focus group interviews with home‐care nurses. Drawing on insights from positioning theory, we discuss the content and delineation of their work and the interweaving of contextual changes. Nurses hold a crucial (...) position in home healthcare, particularly in ensuring care for sicker patients with complex needs. Assessing health needs, performing advanced care, and at the same time, providing customized solutions in various homes were identified as distinctive for home‐care nurses’ work. Changes have made nurses’ work become driven by comprehensive tasks and acute medical needs that require much of their competence and time. Urgent care seems to take precedence in nurses’ work, leaving less time and attention for other tasks such as conversations and support for coping with everyday life. This underlines the need to investigate and discuss the content and scope of nurses’ work to help shape the further development of home‐care nursing. (shrink)

To the degree that citizens have participated in, or derived benefits from, social in- stitutions that have helped cause serious, life-threatening, or rights-threatening envi- ronmental injustice (EIJ), this article argues that they have duties either to stop their participation in these institutions or to compensate for it by helping to reform them. (EIJ occurs whenever children, poor people, minorities, or other subgroups bear dis- proportionate burdens of life-threatening or seriously harmful pollution.) After briefly defining “human rights,” the article defends the (...) four-premise responsibility argument. The argument is that people have duties to compensate for the serious, life-threatening, or rights-threatening EIJ from which they benefit, and that this compensation ideally ought to take the form of helping to reform social institutions that help cause EIJ. As such, this responsibility argument relies on two basic claims. One claim is that because citizens have benefited from, and therefore contributed to, EIJ they bear ethical respon- sibility to help stop it. The second claim is that because citizens participate in nations and institutions whose policies and practices help cause EIJ, they also have democratic responsibility to help stop it. The article closes by responding to four basic objections to this argument. (shrink)

As biological and moral creatures, humans contain physical and psychological needs that correspond to various development stages. According to Lee, a hierarchy of biological and individual needs provides an objective basis for ethics. The anthropocentric hierarchy of needs provides a model for examining the needs of the environment as well. A sound world order must be based on an ethical theory that integrates the needs of humans and the environment of which they are a part. Political and economic systems must (...) universally address all needs at all levels. (shrink)

A growing body of research highlights that adults with autism spectrum disorder have poor health outcomes, yet effective health interventions are lacking for this population. While mobile health applications demonstrate potential for promoting physical activity in adults with ASD, scientific evidence for supporting this tool’s long-term effectiveness on PA behavior change remains inconclusive. This study aimed to provide the latest information on PA research and the prospective role of mobile health applications for promoting PA in adults with ASD. A literature (...) review demonstrated that a few available studies show contradictory results regarding PA levels in adults with ASD, and behavior change techniques and gamification-guided mobile health applications can be promising tactics to leverage autism’s strengths and increase PA in these individuals. Optimizing design decisions based on needs analysis and user feedback is crucial to identifying and developing a sustainable mobile health intervention for PA promotion in adults with ASD. (shrink)

While social interaction and play in a VR environment are becoming ever more popular, little is known about how social VR games affect users. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the role of several contingent factors in social VR games by modeling the relationships between involvement, well-being, depression, self-esteem, and social connectedness. A conditional process-moderated mediation model of the measured variables was analyzed with 220 pieces of collected data. The result showed that: the direct effect of involvement on (...) well-being was significant, and the index of moderated mediation involving depression, self-esteem, and social connectedness was significant. We conclude that high levels of involvement in social VR games by socially isolated users with low self-esteem can negatively affect their well-being. The findings of this study contribute in several ways to our understanding of the effect of social VR games upon users and provide important practical implications. (shrink)

For over one hundred and fifty years G.W.F. Hegel’s ghost has haunted theoretical understanding and practice. His opponents first, and later his defenders, have equally defined their programs against and with his. In this way Hegel’s political thought has both situated and displaced modern political theorizing. This book takes the reception of Hegel’s political thought as a lens through which contemporary methodological and ideological prerogatives are exposed. It traces the nineteenth century origins of the positivist revolt against Hegel’s legacy forward (...) to political science’s turn away from philosophical tradition in the twentieth century. The book critically reviews the subsequent revisionist trend that has eliminated his metaphysics from contemporary considerations of his political thought. It then moves to re-evaluate their relation and defend their inseparability in his major work on politics: the_ Philosophy of Right_. Against this background, the book concludes with an argument for the inherent metaphysical dimension of political theorizing itself. Goodfield takes Hegel’s reception, representation, as well as rejection in Anglo-American scholarship as a mirror in which its metaphysical presuppositions of the political are exceptionally well reflected. It is through such reflection, he argues, that we may begin to come to terms with them. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and readers of political theory and philosophy, Hegel, metaphysics and the philosophy of the social sciences. (shrink)

The main international standard-setting agencies for ionizing radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) both subscribe to principles which (they claim) lead to equitable protection for all generations exposed to radioactive pollution. Yet, when one examines the practices both groups support, it is clear that these practices discriminate against future generations with respect to radioactive pollution. After showing (I) that the IAEA and ICRP rhetoric of equity does not match their policies and (...) practices, the essay argues (2) that current people ought to try to treat members of future generations equitably with respect to protection from radioactive pollution. The essay also argues (3) that current policies of permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste do not meet the second criterion, and therefore (4) that society ought to investigate whether another strategy for managing the waste would provide better equal protection among all generations. (shrink)

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The White Coats for Black Lives and #ShutDownSTEM movements have galvanised biomedical practitioners and researchers to eliminate institutional and systematic racism, including barriers faced by Black researchers in biomedicine and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In our study on Black–White funding gaps for National Institutes of Health Research Project grants, we found that the overall award rate for Black applicants is 55% of that for white applicants. How can systems for allocating research grant funding be made more fair while improving (...) their efficiency? (shrink)

When Kangas suggested in 1986 that wildlife reserve designs could be much smaller than previously thought, community ecologists attacked his views on methodological grounds (island biogeographical theory is beset with uncertainties) and on conservation grounds (Kangas seemed to encourage deforestation and extinction). Kangas' defenders, like Simberloff, argued that in a situation of biological uncertainty (the degree/type of deforestation-induced extinction), scientists ought to follow the epistemologically conservative course and risk type-II error (the risk of not rejecting a null hypothesis that is (...) false), rather than type-I error. (This is the risk of rejecting a null hypothesis that is true). Kangas' opponents, like Noss, argued that, in a situation of scientific uncertainty, scientists ought to risk type-I, rather than type-II, error. This essay argues that there are different types of rationality appropriate to science and applied science and, therefore, in cases of applied science (like conservation biology), the more conservative course of action is for scientists to risk type-I error. The essay argues further that, on grounds of scientific rationality, Kangas, Simberloff, and others were correct in risking type-II error, but that, on grounds of decision-theoretic rationality, Noss, Waide, and others were correct in risking type-I error. (shrink)